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Turtles All the Way Down

BEST FINAL EXAM EVER:

 "Describe the universe.  Give two examples."
*   *   *

 OLD TRAVELING LECTURER STORY:

 The old lady in the back challenged the lecturer's theory about evolution and other new-fangled, so-called "scientific" notions about how the world works.  She insisted that the earth rested on the back of a turtle. "And what does the turtle stand on?" the lecturer asked.  "Oh, no, young man," she said.  "That won't work! It is turtles all the way down!"
*   *   *

 Turtles are a great comfort against a damnably complex universe.  Have you ever tried to comprehend how mind-boggling, everlasting long 14 billion years is?  How many zeroes is that, again?  14,000,000,000: nine!  Why not make it twelve or fifteen?  Spend an evening, sometime, with a friend who has been to school too long, and ask her to explain quantum theory one more time.  Ask for two examples.   It won't work.  It is turtles all the way down.

 I have no way of knowing for certain, because it is about four zeroes back in human history, but I suspect that the notion that somewhere up there in the sky there was an incredibly old man who had made the whole universe one week in Oktoberfest, came about as a manageable way to comprehend what was too much to be comprehended in its raw state.

"What's it all about, Alfie?"  
     "It's about heaven and hell in the long run, and how to get there."
"Give two examples!"
     "Moses and Jesus.  And maybe Buddha and Muhammed.  Is that four?"
*   *   *

 Nobody goes to the beach to count sand grains.  We go to the beach to enjoy the photons that have been traveling for about eight minutes from the nearest star.  Or maybe just to lie in the sun.  Some things are almost too complicated to think about.  It is a sturdy turtle.  All of them.  All the way down.

Religions are a lot like conspiracy theories and politics.  Is the climate really changing?  Is it not the case that the religion we grew up with in the Roman Empire is the one, true, holy and catholic faith?  Does God not sit on his throne?  Is Allah his name, too?  Or instead?  How did we get a Black man in the White House?  Maybe he was born in Kenya!  Or Kentucky!  Is our God not on our side in every war and in every hymn and creed?

Quarks?  Your daughter is bringing whom home to dinner?  What you learned that was absolutely true might just be what people in Bulgaria used to think, mostly?

Maybe one can be excused for an occasional lapse into turtle thinking, just to make things manageable.



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